Fractional general counsel for startups

What a part time general counsel handles for a startup

A fractional general counsel is a licensed attorney who acts as your in-house legal lead on a part time schedule. They answer day to day questions, review and negotiate contracts, and help you see legal risk before it becomes a dispute. Side.work is a marketplace and does not itself give legal advice. The attorney you hire is an independent professional who is responsible for their own advice and for confirming that they are licensed to practice where you need help.

Most of the hours go to a short list of recurring jobs. Customer agreements and vendor contracts come first, because every sale and every purchase has terms. Next come privacy policies and data processing terms, then employment paperwork such as offer letters, contractor agreements, and confidentiality terms. Corporate housekeeping, equity grants, and board materials follow as the company grows.

A good counsel also builds templates. Instead of rewriting a sales agreement for each customer, they create a standard form with approved fallback positions, so your sales team can close faster without calling a lawyer each time.

When a growing company stops relying on templates and favors

Early on, a founder downloads a template or asks a friend who practices law. That works until the stakes rise. The signals are easy to recognize.

• A large customer sends its own paper with indemnity and liability terms you do not understand.
• You collect personal data and nobody has read the rules that apply to it.
• You have signed contractors who work like employees.
• Investors ask for a clean cap table and organized corporate records.
• You are about to hire in a new state and want the paperwork right.

A law firm can handle any of these, but billing by the hour with a firm minimum makes small questions feel expensive. A fractional counsel who knows your business answers a question in ten minutes because they already understand your product, your customers, and your risk tolerance.

That context is the main value. Advice is more useful when the person giving it remembers last month's decision.

Month one, month two, month three with fractional counsel

Here is a realistic path for a company with 15 to 50 people and no in-house lawyer.

First month. The attorney reviews your key contracts, standard terms, privacy documents, and any open disputes. They produce a short risk list ranked by likelihood and cost. They also set up a simple intake so questions from your team arrive in one place.

Second month. Work moves to templates. Expect a master services agreement or terms of service, a data processing addendum, a mutual NDA, and a contractor agreement. The counsel writes plain English guidance for your sales team on what they can agree to without escalation.

Third month. The focus shifts to people and records. Employment documents are reviewed, equity documents are organized, and a calendar of recurring filings and renewals is created. The attorney also recommends when outside specialists, such as a trademark attorney or a securities lawyer, are worth the cost.

Throughout, you should receive written summaries, not just calls. They create a record of decisions and make future onboarding of a full-time lawyer easier.

Fractional counsel compared with a law firm or an in-house lawyer

Law firms are strong for specialized work like litigation or a major financing. In-house counsel is the right answer once legal work fills a full week. Fractional counsel covers the long middle, where you need steady, informed judgment but not 40 hours of it.

Many companies use both. The fractional counsel manages outside firms, scopes their work, and reviews their bills.

Vetting a lawyer before you hand over your contracts

Because legal advice carries professional responsibility, vetting matters more here than for most roles. Start with the basics. Ask which states the attorney is licensed in, whether they are in good standing, and whether they carry professional liability insurance. Check these facts directly with the relevant state bar rather than relying on a profile alone.

Then test experience. Ask what kinds of companies they have advised, how they handle a customer who refuses your standard terms, and how they decide which risks to accept. Ask for a sample of a template they wrote, with client details removed.

Clarify scope before the first hour. Some counsel will not handle litigation, tax, or immigration, and a good one will say so and point you to a specialist. Agree how you will send requests, how fast you expect an answer, and who may instruct the attorney. One person at your company should be the lead contact.

Finally, ask about conflicts. A lawyer who also advises your competitor or a major customer should disclose it. Your contract includes an NDA, and the attorney's own professional rules on confidentiality also apply.

What five hours a week of counsel costs

Suppose a 25 person software company needs steady legal help at five hours a week on the Starter plan. A rate of $250 an hour sits in the middle of the guide range.

Five hours at $250 is $1,250 a week. Multiply by 4.33 and the approved hours come to $5,412.50 a month. The Starter platform fee is 12 percent, which is $649.50. The monthly invoice is $6,062.00, plus the plan subscription.

At the low end of the range, $200 an hour for five hours is $4,330 before the fee. At the high end, $350 an hour is $7,577.50 before the fee. If you need ten hours during a busy month, the contract hours cap can be raised with agreement from both sides.

Moving to Growth lowers the fee to 8 percent, and Scale lowers it to 5 percent. Compare plans on the pricing page. For many startups the cost is a fraction of a full-time lawyer's total package.

Setting up a simple way to ask legal questions

Part time counsel works best when questions reach them in an organized way. Without a system, a lawyer ends up answering a dozen messages a day in a dozen places, and the paid hours go to searching instead of advising.

Pick one intake path. A shared inbox, a dedicated channel, or a short form that your team fills in all work. Each request should include what the person needs, the deadline, the document if there is one, and what the business wants to achieve. The attorney can then answer in a consistent format, ideally with a recommendation and a short explanation of the risk.

Agree on categories. Routine items, such as a standard NDA or a renewal with no changes, can follow a quick path with a one-day turnaround. Medium items, such as a customer contract with edits, get a few days. Large items, such as a financing or a dispute, are scoped separately with an estimate of hours.

Create a playbook together. For each common clause in your contracts, the counsel writes a preferred position, an acceptable fallback, and a point at which the deal needs escalation. Sales and operations teams can then handle most deals without waiting.

Keep a contract repository. Signed documents, renewal dates, and notice deadlines should live in one folder with clear names. Missed renewal dates are among the most common avoidable legal costs for small companies.

Review the arrangement quarterly. Look at the number of requests, the time spent, and the questions that keep returning. Repeated questions are a signal that a template or a training session would save hours.

How to find and contract with counsel here

Enter the role, hours, and budget. Side.work shows a ranked shortlist of verified profiles with availability and rates. Verification covers work email domain, a checked LinkedIn profile, portfolio links, and payout identity. We do not verify bar admission or evaluate legal quality, so confirm licensing yourself.

Send intros, hold calls, and choose. The contract sets a weekly hours cap, a notice period, and an NDA and IP assignment. Timesheets are submitted weekly and approved by you, and you pay one invoice that includes approved hours and the platform fee. The attorney keeps 100 percent of the agreed rate. Read how it works for each step.

Related roles often come up in the same conversation. A fractional HR lead can handle policies and handbooks, and a fractional CEO can lead through a restructuring or a financing. See also contracts for fractional work.